by Eric Thomson
Every hologram around the table nodded enthusiastically.
“Full dress uniform, I presume?” Pushkin asked.
“I wouldn’t want it any other way.”
Dunmoore turned her head and speared Holt with a hard stare. “What are you planning, Captain?”
“Just making sure you don’t sneak off on us, Skipper. Believe it or not, many people around here would be crushed if we didn’t give you full honors.”
— Forty-Seven —
Dunmoore took one last look around her cabin when the door chime rang. Stripped of her personal effects, which were already aboard the shuttle, it held no more warmth than any transient senior officer’s quarters. For reasons she couldn’t explain, Dunmoore fancied this may well have been her last cabin aboard a starship as anything more than a passenger.
“Enter.”
Holt, in full dress uniform, poked his head through the opening.
“The Task Force Luckner captains are aboard and waiting for you in the wardroom, sir.”
“Coming.”
Dunmoore glanced at her reflection in the full-length mirror affixed to the bulkhead, glad she’d kept her old tunic with a post captain’s four gold stripes and executive curl on either cuff. Perhaps she never truly believed they would let her stay a flag officer for long, not with only three years’ seniority as a captain, not now that she served in a peacetime navy. But the commodore’s uniform with its Task Force Luckner crest on the right sleeve was packed away with the rest of her things, in case fate smiled on her again.
Holt led Dunmoore down the passageway, and as he entered the wardroom, he called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, the commodore.”
All conversation ceased as those present snapped to attention.
“At ease,” Dunmoore said. “Thank you for coming.”
“We wouldn’t have missed it for all the gold in the galaxy,” Pushkin replied.
She went around the room, shaking hands and saying a few words to each of the captains who, until yesterday, were under her command. Meanwhile, the wardroom steward passed out stemless glasses filled with ruby red wine. When everyone held one, Holt cleared his throat.
“Captains, I want to propose a toast to our commanding officer, and it won’t be the toast of the day, since it’s Thursday, the war is over, and I’d rather we didn’t experience a pandemic.”
A few chuckles greeted Holt’s quip.
“Instead, I will wish our departing commodore the following.”
He raised his glass.
“May the winds of fortune sail you,
May you sail a gentle sea.
May it always be the other guy
Who says, this drink’s on me.”
“To Siobhan Dunmoore!”
The assembled officers raised their glasses and called out, “To Siobhan Dunmoore.”
Her eyebrows shot up at the first sip of wine. Where Holt found such an excellent vintage at short notice, she didn’t dare ask. The Chateau Pétrus was long gone, it certainly wasn’t from Iolanthe’s stocks, and after ten years under the Shrehari thumb, it wasn’t from Cimmeria either. When Dunmoore glanced at him, he put on a roguish smile and winked, as if he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“I owe Oliver Harmel a big one, Skipper. When the brass shifted over to Equinox Nova, they left the good stuff behind.”
“Oh.”
Their time in the wardroom passed at a dizzying speed, and it came as a surprise when Holt touched her elbow.
“Sorry, Skipper, but your shuttle is waiting.”
“Of course. Please lead on.”
“No, sir. As your last duty, we, your captains, ask that you lead us to the hangar deck.”
She gave him a curious stare.
“If you wish.”
When the wardroom door opened, she found two pipers and two drummers from Terra’s Marine band in the passageway, facing aft, toward the hangar. The pipers inflated their instruments, then one of the drummers muttered a command, and as they stepped off, they began playing a traditional military march, The Crags of Tumbledown Mountain. Since she had no choice, Dunmoore followed them at a brisk pace, trailed by her captains marching two by two.
The hangar deck’s inner doors opened at their approach, and Commander Emma Cullop called the ship’s company to attention. When she entered the cavernous compartment, Dunmoore immediately understood that orders be damned, Holt was giving her an admiral’s farewell, both to honor her and flip HQ the bird.
As she approached the formation, the spacers arrayed in three ranks on her left and the soldiers of E Company, 3rd Battalion, Scandia Regiment arrayed on her right presented arms with a thunderous crash. Their officers and command noncoms saluted with drawn swords while the rest of the Marine band joined their four comrades.
The pinnace, still wearing a commodore’s flag on its sides sat at the far end of the formation, its open aft ramp facing Dunmoore, waiting for her. She knew her role, having participated in just such a ceremony years earlier and raised her hand in salute as she marched between spacers and soldiers.
She stopped at the foot of the ramp and made a precise about-turn, only to see Holt and the other eight captains standing at attention in a single row, closing off the far end of the formation. Then, Dunmoore noticed a short white mast, flying a commodore’s broad pennant in one corner. Cullop gave the shoulder arms command, and the music died away.
Holt took one step forward.
“Lower Commodore Dunmoore’s pennant.”
A familiar voice, belonging to newly-promoted Petty Officer Third Class Vincenzo, called out, “Flag party, quick march.”
Six spacers emerged from the shadows and headed for the mast, heels clicking on the metal deck.
When they reached the mast, Vincenzo took hold of the cords, and the band began playing Auld Lang Syne. He lowered her pennant with care while his mates gathered the material.
Once the pennant was free, they folded it into a small triangle which Vincenzo tucked under his left arm. When the flag party stepped off toward Dunmoore, the band segued into Will You No Come Back Again. After the first few bars, the spacers and soldiers broke out into song.
And will ye no’ come back again?
Will ye no’ come back again?
Better lo’ed ye canna be
Will ye no’ come back again?
A sudden rush of emotion forced tears into the corners of her eyes.
Vincenzo stamped to a halt in front of her, saluted, and held out the folded pennant. His voice came out as a hoarse croak when he said, “Sir, it’s been an honor serving under your command. Fair winds and following seas.”
She accepted the pennant. “Thank you for everything, Petty Officer Vincenzo.”
“Sir.”
He took a step back and saluted again. She returned the compliment, then watched him and his party march away to vanish among the spacer ranks.
Chief Petty Officer Second Class Dwyn stepped forward with ten of her mates, each carrying a silver bosun’s call. Eleven calls met eleven sets of lips, and the farewell trill to a flag officer echoed across the deck.
“Ship’s company, present ARMS.”
Holt, voice pitched to cut through the noise, said, “Luckner, departing.”
Dunmoore knew it was her cue. She raised her hand to salute her ship, her crew, her captains, and her soldiers one last time. As the calls fell silent, a lone piper began to play the traditional lament for the occasion, Sleep Dearie Sleep as he stepped away from the band and slowly marched across the hangar deck.
Dunmoore pivoted on her heels and marched up the ramp. Once inside, she turned around and looked back while the ramp slowly rose, taking one last gaze at what she knew had been her final starship command.
The shuttle lifted off, pivoted, and then slipped through the force field keeping the deck pressurized while the space doors were open.
They closed moments after the pinnace cleared Iolanthe, cutting off her view of the assembled crew and the l
one piper through one of the aft portholes. Now that she was alone, save for Petty Officer Gus Purdy, the pilot up front, she let tears stream down her cheeks without shame.
Leaving Iolanthe was more heart-wrenching than leaving any of her other ships had been and for one reason only — the Furious Faerie would continue to sail, fight, and live on without her.
Where Dunmoore had been Don Quixote, Shenzen, and Stingray’s last captain, she was Iolanthe’s first. The Q-ship still had a long career ahead of her, longer perhaps than Dunmoore’s, while she faced life without being surrounded by a crew for the first time in a decade. It would be a difficult adjustment.
Many long service starship captains never manage the transition. If she was one of them, perhaps early retirement from the navy to work in the merchant service might be an option. Although with the current demobilization, there would be plenty of experienced wartime officers looking for work in shipping companies large and small.
But Dunmoore knew she would eventually come across many of those with whom she’d sailed for so long. The navy was about to become a small family again, and perhaps, if fate smiled on her, some might even serve under her command once more. If they gave her another command.
Yet leaving them behind still ached and would for a long time, especially since she wouldn’t be able to bury herself in work until one of Terra’s shuttles dropped her off at the Sanctum spaceport on Caledonia.
By the time her former command faded in the distance, Dunmoore’s eyes were once again dry, though her voice still held a tinge of sadness.
“Fair winds and following seas, my friends.”
About the Author
Eric Thomson is the pen name of a retired Canadian soldier who served more time in uniform than he expected, both in the Regular Army and the Army Reserve. He spent his Regular Army career in the Infantry and his Reserve service in the Armoured Corps. He worked as an information technology executive for several years before retiring to become a full-time author.
Eric has been a voracious reader of science fiction, military fiction, and history all his life. Several years ago, he put fingers to keyboard and started writing his own military sci-fi, with a definite space opera slant, using many of his own experiences as a soldier for inspiration.
When he is not writing fiction, Eric indulges in his other passions: photography, hiking, and scuba diving, all of which he shares with his wife.
Join Eric Thomson at https://www.thomsonfiction.ca/
Where you will find news about upcoming books and more information about the universe in which his heroes fight for humanity’s survival.
Read his blog at https://ericthomsonblog.wordpress.com/
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Also by Eric Thomson
Siobhan Dunmoore
No Honor in Death (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 1)
The Path of Duty (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 2)
Like Stars in Heaven (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 3)
Victory’s Bright Dawn (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 4)
Without Mercy (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 5)
When the Guns Roar (Siobhan Dunmoore Book 6)
Decker’s War
Death Comes But Once (Decker’s War Book 1)
Cold Comfort (Decker’s War Book 2)
Fatal Blade (Decker’s War Book 3)
Howling Stars (Decker’s War Book 4)
Black Sword (Decker’s War Book 5)
No Remorse (Decker’s War Book 6)
Hard Strike (Decker’s War Book 7)
Quis Custodiet
The Warrior’s Knife (Quis Custodiet No 1)
Ashes of Empire
Imperial Sunset (Ashes of Empire #1)
Imperial Twilight (Ashes of Empire #2)
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